Time for some of these plaintiffs’ lawyers to pack it up.
We’ve been writing about RICO lawsuits on this blog for a while. These lawsuits are typically brought by neighbors of state-licensed cannabis farms, who allege they are bothered by noise and smells associated with cannabis production, and that their property values have been damaged by extension. Generally speaking, these plaintiffs tend to have strong prohibitionist beliefs. Filing Read entire story

When people have been wronged, they naturally want to get justice and want the party that wronged them to pay enough money to make them whole. The law generally holds that when someone commits a tort or breaches a contract against you, they owe you an amount of money equal to the value of your damages suffered because of the tort or contract breach. Unfortunately, getting justice isn’t so simple. The general order of events is as follows. The Read entire story

This is the second post in a series on various aspects of cannabis litigation. The title is admittedly a bit misleading, as arbitration isn’t really the same thing as litigation. That said, the two can intersect, and so understanding what arbitration is and is not, is important for cannabis businesses. After all, many contracts in the cannabis industry can include arbitration clauses.
Arbitration is, essentially, a trial before a private entity Read entire story

Protect them at all costs!
Over the course of the next few weeks and months, we intend to write a number of blog posts about various forms of civil litigation that could arise in future in the cannabis industry. This is the first, and is focused on trade secret litigation.
For those of you who haven’t read some of our earlier posts on trade secret law, here’s a short recap of what trade secrets even are. A trade secret is virtually any form of Read entire story

Nuisance pollination can cause a row.
In recent posts, we’ve discussed cases where a neighbor to a cannabis grow sued the grower for nuisance, claiming that growing cannabis interfered with the neighbor’s use of their land. See here, here, here, here, here, and here. These lawsuits relied on the non-cannabis landowner’s claims that the federally illegal cannabis business caused harm because of odor, disruptive activity, and diminution of property Read entire story

OLCC may be getting strict.
A violation of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (“OLCC”) recreational marijuana rules can land you in hot water. I’ve previously written about rule violations and the administrative process, including settlements. It’s been our experience that the OLCC is open to settlement agreements for licensees who violate rules, and we regularly help settle these cases. Some are easier than others.
Settlement agreements Read entire story

In previous posts, we’ve puzzled about why no one has filed a cannabis patent infringement case, despite the large number of patents granted for cannabis plants and compounds. See here, here, here, and here.
That all changed last week. United Cannabis Corporation (“UCANN”) has now filed what is believed to be the first cannabis patent infringement complaint. The case is United Cannabis Corporation v. Pure Hemp Collective, Inc., Read entire story

Be prepared!
As I discussed last week, hacked devices, breached networks, and stolen proprietary information have become commonplace in the cannabis industry. Because cybercrime variants are continually emerging, no company can achieve totally assured cybersecurity. Consequently, we strongly encourage all our clients to adopt a cyber incident plan for responding to attacks before they occur. Developing a vetted, comprehensive plan of action is Read entire story

Cannabis has remained federally illegal at the same time states continue to legalize cannabis in one form or another. As a result of legalization, private parties enter and perform contracts, loan and borrow money, and convey leasehold property rights in ways that involve cannabis. These contracts affect and depend upon millions of dollars in assets, including real estate, thereby interweaving the cannabis industry into the economic systems that Read entire story

Cannabis regulation in California is heavily focused on local control. We write and speak about this constantly. (See here, here, here, and here). As predicted, new lawsuits are cropping up all over the state challenging the authority of local governments to take certain actions as they pertain to cannabis. Our firm has generally discouraged clients from taking a litigious approach toward government regulation of cannabis, because the often Read entire story

In Part 1 of this series we discussed how mediation works in most cannabis disputes. Today, we discuss some strategic considerations to increase the likelihood of success in cannabis mediation.
Know your audience(s): Unlike in litigation or arbitration, where your audience is a disinterested third party judge, jury, or arbitrator, your primary audience in mediation is the other side. After all, mediation will not result in settlement unless Read entire story

Mediation and arbitration are the two major “alternative dispute resolution” (ADR) techniques used in business disputes. We’ve discussed arbitration in cannabis cases in several previous blog posts, here, here, here, here, and here. Although arbitration gets more attention these days than mediation (see the Supreme Court’s recent arbitration decision), mediation is probably the most commonly used form of ADR in cannabis businesses.
Some Read entire story

Josephine County is ALL IN on prohibition.
For the past several months we have been following Josephine County’s efforts to regulate away its cannabis industry, specifically in rural residential zones. This saga has taken many twists and turns (see here, here, here, and here), but this week brought perhaps the biggest twist yet: Josephine County has sued the State of Oregon in a suit that could effectively invalidate its cannabis Read entire story

An appeals court in Washington ruled last week that Clark County has the authority to ban the retail sale of recreational marijuana, settling any remaining dispute as to whether local governments in Washington can ban marijuana activities. The ruling was a long time coming, and not unexpected.
Washington law and rules promulgated by the Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB or the Board) give local authorities the option to object to whether the LCB Read entire story

Josephine County skipped a step.
In the past six months, we have closely followed the efforts of Josephine County, Oregon, to ban cannabis farming in its rural residential 5 (RR-5) zone (see our coverage here and here). Just last week we mentioned that a coalition of local growers (“Petitioners”) challenging the local ordinance finally had their day in court, presenting their case to Oregon’s Land Use Board of Appeals Read entire story